Oh my God,
The Mummy Returns sucked. Hackneyed story, gratuitous amounts
of CGI dogmen and a brief, yet colossally hyped appearance by
a pro wrestling star who's obviously been tossed from the ring
one too many times - these things a good movie do not make. Of
course, there was that "girls gone wild" cat fight between
Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velasquez, but even pseudo-lesbianism
wasn't enough to save this stinker.

"But
it made $70 million opening weekend," you cry, "It can't
be that bad." You're right, it did, and I'll even admit that
1/10,000,000th of that initial gross (oh yeah, pun intended) came
from my hard-earned paycheck, but sometimes the savviest of critics
gets fooled. Plus, come on, Rachel Weisz is hot - especially when
she's doing cartwheels in gold lamé. But I digress

So for no
other reason than guilt by association, the original motion picture
soundtrack to The Mummy Returns sucks just as much as that
pitiful excuse for a movie it was written for. Remember that mix-tape
your ex-girlfriend made for you with all those songs that meant
something to just you and her? The one that had the song you first
made out to, the song you danced to at senior prom, and that one
that you first fu. I mean made love to? And then remember
when you found out the little skank had been screwing someone
else behind your back and how she gave you the genital warts that
she got from the guy she was nailing? Did you ever try listening
to that mix-tape after she gnawed through your sternum and ate
your heart with an iced cappuccino? Remember how listening to
it made you want to pull off one of your own arms and beat yourself
senseless with it for putting up with all of her shit? All the
money you spent on little gifts and dinners, and all the times
you assured her she didn't look fat in those jeans (even though
you knew she did)? Forgive me for dredging up all of those memories,
but that might give you some vague conception of what listening
to The Mummy Returns is like.

Yes, it's
really that bad. The overwhelming nausea I felt as I walked out
of the that god-awful cartoon-with-live-action-actors lurched
back into my gut as the opening strings of "The Legend of
the Scorpion King" began to punish my stereo. "My First
Bus Ride" dredges up repugnant recollections of the trapeze
artist mummies who follow Brendan Fraser et al. on to a double-decker
bus for one of the more ridiculous chase scenes in memory. And
then of course there's the swoon of "The Mushy Part,"
which needs no elaboration.

Well, maybe
I'm being a little harsh. The score is composed by Alan Silvestri
- the guy who penned the music for Back to the Future.
I don't care what anyone says, that was the best goddamn soundtrack
of 1985. I couldn't tell you what else came out that year, but
there's no way anything could have matched the rush I got as an
eight-year-old when the horn section hit that crescendo as Marty
McFly hit the gas in the Twin Pines mall parking lot in front
of JCPenney and wondered aloud "Let's see if these bastards
can do 90." Face it, that was the shit. But fittingly, The
Mummy Returns is just, well, shit. Sadly, Back to the Future
was the pinnacle for Silvestri, who has found a way to rip himself
off in every soundtrack since then, yet directors inexplicably
continue to throw work his way. (Robert Zemeckis has used him
in damn near every movie he's ever made.) He hits all the standard
movie soundtrack bases - rousing adrenaline pumpers, subtle heart-string
tuggers and fear-inducing seat-clutchers - but the score suffers
from the same condition that plagues the movie's title character
- it lacks heart.

In "Forever
May Not Be Long Enough" (I could make a crack here about
how long I could go before watching this movie again, but I won't)
the obligatory closing titles song, donated here by Live, lead
singer Ed Kowalczyk asks "Would you follow me to the other
side?" Hey Ed, I'll follow you anywhere, just so long as
you make the music stop.